Full Circle Moment….

Very seldom in life do we pause long enough to catch up with ourselves, with where we are at and what we have achieved, overcome, worked through and healed. We get so caught up in the doing we forget the importance of allowing time to just “be”. I pressed the pause button this week. Paused the craziness of my work schedule to spend a week on “Fiji time”

Fiji holds a very special place in my heart. I got married here. I have travelled here in the days after severe earthquakes at home, I have spent time here with my beloved late husband and also with dear friends. This place has wound its way around my heart with its warm air, sparkling waters and smiling people. Life is always on pause here. This visit has been extra special. I have had time to write and reflect and to meet up with parts of myself that were here in this place in a different time in my life.

I have travelled far and wide in my life since my first visit to this place, from the highest of highs to the depths of my grief. Recently my attention has been drawn to posts on my Facebook feed related to grief. They have told me “grief never ends” ” you never stop grieving ” ” you don’t get over you loss you just learn to live with it” I once felt deeply connected to these themes. They touched the core of my grieving but now they feel completely incongruent with my experience . My grief has ended. I no longer feel the deep loss I once felt.

Losing my husband and all of my dreams and plans for the future was unimaginably difficult but this trip to Fiji has shown me that where I once felt loss and grief I now feel a deep gratitude for all that Ande and the loss of Ande has brought into my life. I feel incredibly blessed to have had the time with him I did, blessed to have been a part of his life. Losing him has been both a life defining and life giving experience. It has given me back myself. It has shown me that there is so much more to be experienced and enjoyed in every moment than I ever believed possible.

So never let a Facebook feed or anyone else define the process of your grief. Your grief, your loss is yours alone. It is a painful and raw experience. It may be similiar to mine or it may be completely different. The way you grieve in no way diminishes the value of the life you have lost or the place that person held in your life. Allow yourself the full spectrum of your grief, gift that to yourself.

This time Fiji has gifted me what can only be described as a full circle moment. A moment so filled with gratitude and joy that tears come again to my eyes as I write about it. I found myself standing next to myself whole and complete and healed. No longer who I once was but happy so very very happy  and stronger and braver and freer than I have ever been. I found my joy bug!

I shed my old skin here, leaving behind the parts of myself I no longer need, that no longer serve me. When I leave tomorrow it will be with a full and grateful heart. Ready to step into the new and knowing that the next time I need to press the pause button Fiji will be here waiting for me.

Bula!

Paula

Navigating your inner terrain…..

How much do you know of your inside? The core of you…What is really at the bottom of all the beliefs you hold about yourself?….all your preconceived ideas of the world and who you are in it…the choices you have made based on your conditioned experiences?

This is your inner landscape, the terrain of your heart, the place where your soul resides….do you know what it looks like?

I have been called to explore my own inner terrain this week, to climb my interior Mt Everest. This call came in the most innocuous and unexpected way. It wasn’t outstanding or miraculous, I was simply faced with one disappointment too many. I reached my tipping point!

Initially I was devastated and devastated in a way that was far more cavernous than the size of the actual disappointment which in the big scheme of things was entirely unremarkable. This small disappointment set of an avalanche of frustration, grief, sadness and despair that I had been totally unaware was waiting inside me on a hair-trigger. Waiting for just the right moment to go off. I was in pain. I was heartbroken. I cried and cried until my face ached.

And then suddenly I was empty

I was completely empty and not in a lonely I don’t know what to do with my exhausted and disappointed self way but in a peaceful, quiet, calm, you have reached the bottom of yourself way.

I have sat in this beautiful calm emptiness now for several days. I have been empty and laughing. I have been empty and joyful, empty and loving, empty and determined, empty and experiencing deep clarity and wonder. I am exploring the geography of my emptiness.

You see I am a passionate, driven, achieving, striving person. This is my modus operandi. This is what I have believed will get me what I want. I pour myself into people and projects and tasks and goals and relationships. This is who I have been all of my adult life. What happened a few days ago when I reached my tipping point was that I poured myself into one project too many and when it didn’t come off their was nothing of me left. I had run out of striving and achieving. I had run out of passion for all of the things that I used to think were important, of value and what I most desired.

If you have read this far I suspect you are wondering where this is going….to be honest I am not really sure but what I do know is that finding my empty has been liberating, possibly as liberating as reaching the summit of that mountain you have wanted to climb your whole life. I am no longer constrained by all the ideals and ideas I once thought important, defining and pivotal. I am free of the values my conditioning and experiences where holding me to.

My inside, my inner terrain feels spacious, new and yet to be discovered. I feel I can let go of expectations for myself and from others. This is where I leave behind all that I was and discover who it is I am and what I want to bring forward. Nothing is holding me back or weighing me down yet I feel no demands to rush forward.

I am enjoying this inner sanctuary, my personal mountain top. When I think about what might be ahead I feel no fear or apprehension. I feel a smile open on my face. Striving has been replaced with allowing. Action has been replaced with exploration. Fear becomes a deep trust in the internal restructuring that is occurring. I am not who I once was and I am not who I will ultimately become. It just is how it is….and its lovely.

Time to explore the hills and valleys, the mountains and rivers and oceans of myself. I am my own adventurer, pouring myself into myself.

Have you explored your inner landscape? Feel free to share in the comments below